Mother May I
by ReeReeWithAngst
Summary: AU spinoff of my stories Failure and Shame where May is the mother of Lance. (Fan theory I share with Nick Blood). In this iteration May chooses to keep her son instead of leaving him in the hands of his no good dad, and a bond develops that she never would've expected.


**A spin off of Failure and Shame which man I hope you guys read. At least Failure. Of the two, Failure is better.**

 **But if you haven't the premise is that when May was 19 she was raped got pregnant and gave birth to Lance Hunter. Except in this variation instead of giving up the boy to his father (who might've put him up for adoption) she decided to keep him and raise him between her life at S.H.I.E.L.D. Here's hoping the explanation isn't better than the story.**

* * *

It was as she remembered it.

She was having trouble breathing. Because it was so overwhelming. Because she held a little boy in her arms that had come out of her body. Because he hadn't been planned, intended, wanted. Because she didn't think she was capable of love in this instance she hated so much. Because he was a few weeks old and fussing. She tried to calm him best she could, getting agitated but not really at him.

At herself. For failing. She looked at him and for an instance all she saw him was a whiny hair pulling reminder of her failure.

She talked to it. That was the mortifying thing. She'd cared for it and made specific plans to get rid of it. S.H.I.E.L.D. had agreed to keep her failure secret unless she said otherwise. As she carried the lump, the beast, the monster, the reminder down London streets she couldn't think of a single reason why she would say otherwise.

Then she stood in front of that ugly flat he'd taken her back to the night she'd let a man get the best of her. She stood at the door with a diaper bag and a baby in her arms and wheels clicking in her head. This strike of emotion that told her, I would be more of a failure if I gave up now.

I would be more of a failure if I let myself be scared of people thinking less of me for something that wasn't my fault.

And then simply, this wasn't my fault.

She glanced at the boy for the first time for real and murmured to him. "This wasn't your fault either."

If she gave him to his father he might grow up thinking he wasn't supposed to exist. That he was a creature, not even human. Or he would grow arrogant, rude, vain, pretentious. Just like his father.

If he let that poor boy end up like his father that would be the biggest failure of her life.

So she didn't knock as she'd fully intended. Because getting rid of the boy wouldn't have fixed anything.

And as it turned out, he made her tougher. Made her stronger. She'd been ashamed but he helped with that too.

She walked into the academy with a baby on her hip and baby weight still to be worked out and they'd all been...

Shocked. Which, frankly, she found hilarious. After nine months she needed something. She didn't laugh at them though, not in front of them at least. Later when it was just her and Lance she let out all the suppressed laughter, but when she was standing in front of her accusers she said simply this, in the toughest voice she could muster,

"I have a son now. Get over it." Maybe they didn't quite get over it, but no one ever said anything about it to her face.

No one except Phil. Phil didn't know boundaries and he didn't know tact but he sure knew how to make her son laugh with peek a boo and silly nursery rhymes. Phil who brought her tea and made _her_ laugh. Phil who told stories he maybe never would have told her otherwise and said that if she wanted he would teach Lance to drive in Lola, though she said that he might need to get older before that was a concern.

If anyone thought that she wouldn't train as hard or as often or be as tough just because she was a mom now was wrong.

She trained twice as hard for just as long and was even tougher because now she had a life to look out for outside of her own. A life that though she had never intended it to, now meant more to her than anything else.

If anyone touched her baby she would gut them.

She _and_ Phil would gut them. For awhile he acted as father and role model, well no, that never really stopped.

Only Andrew stepped in. Andrew became Lance's father for as long as their beautiful romance could last. Lance grew up smarter than people believed, tougher and quicker. He was raised and taught by his mother and kept in check by his father figures. When Andrew left Phil nearly took over full time.

When she became the Calvary Lance was the one who kept her sane. The struggle and heartbreak was horrible, but Lance always seemed to know how to make her smile.

He was a troublemaker and a problem child. He never did his homework and would occasionally denounce S.H.I.E.L.D. just to get her riled up. In his teens he acted up and often she wanted to throw him out. But there would be days when he would show that he got her. That he needed her. He would prove to her that their family was forever.

Even when it drifted apart.

There were days when she wanted to throw him out. When it came to college, more specifically when it came to him refusing to join the Academy, the Academy who'd accepted him and helped mold him, she basically did. He joined the army, fell in love, made good choices and bad ones, became a merc, and only wrote Christmas cards. She kept the Christmas cards in a box and swore that she would never take them out and reread them but she always did.

She thought the stupid troublemaker would get himself killed and that would be the last of it.

She devoted her time to her paperwork, and then to Coulson's special team.

That team became her family. She tried to make it her family, tried to forget that she had a real family somewhere acting foolish. When she heard from Bobbi Morse that he was alive and well and still annoying (for the Christmas cards had stopped coming) she responded to it as calmly as she could, inwardly rejoicing.

She and Coulson celebrated privately for both had secretly referred to Lance as their son, much more secretively than how Lance referred to them, openly his parents. No one on the Bus knew she had a kid, and if the stupid merc hadn't showed up one day, they never would've.

He'd changed his name, apparently having learned the identity of his father and made his name fit. He was Lance May-Hunter. But most people knew him only as Lance Hunter, or simply Hunter.

When she met him again after so many years he was still as smart and quick and tough as ever, though he didn't seem it at all. And he had gotten so much more sarcastic, but that was fine. It made her small, if only inwardly.

And when no one was looking he came right up to her and gave her a smile.

"I've missed you, mom."

"On this team you call me May."

"Yes mom."

"May. And don't hug me again, someone might see."

"Not proud of your son?"

"I would be proud of my son if I'd known where he was the past few years." She said sternly, no longer quite in practice with dealing with the child he so obviously was. He yawned casually.

"Here, there, nowhere."

"Not good enough. You'll need to give 125 percent if you want to stay on this team." He shrugged.

"Maybe I don't."

"I've had it up to here with you-" He cracked a smile.

"I know, I know. I'm a pain. A nuisance. I've missed you." She took a deep breath and admitted it for the first time,

"I've missed you too, trouble maker." She let him get away with one more hug.

"Now go find Coulson and bug him."

"Yes May." He hesitated though before he left,

"Are we really not going to tell anyone? I mean I know it's not obvious, but come on."

"We'll see. Go on. Go bug your dad." He smiled because that was the first time she'd said it out loud. In the days to follow he'd give Coulson a hard time about not trusting him and being in it for the money, but it was all an act to the man who'd helped him walk and taught him to drive, the man who, theoretically, had kept both he and his mother sane when things had been hard.

Eventually, their family secret came out.

It was just how she remembered it.

"I have a son now. Get over it."

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 **I am fond of this story and hope you guys are too!**


End file.
